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Saturday, February 18, 2012

The anti-Corona road tour

By JOJO ROBLES
Manila Standard

House deputy majority leader Quezon City Rep. Jorge “Bolet” Banal is the latest celebrity created by the Senate impeachment trial. Judging from his photographs, he is anything but a “small lady.”

Think of it as the convict-Corona road tour. And, if only because taxpayers are paying for it, perhaps they should patronize it.

It’s interesting that the first question from the audience of students to whom President Noynoy Aquino vented his pent-up anger for impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona during the first stop of the tour was something like this: What can Aquino do to stop the increase in tuition and other fees?

Yes, even the students of La Consolacion College, who were probably not expecting the latest outburst of presidential rage that they were treated to, are interested in more than Corona’s impeachment. Even if the President, sadly, is monomaniacally “focused” (as he himself described it) on the chief justice exclusively.

And this is the focus of Aquino now: To take the trial out of the Senate – where it is taking way too long and where the prosecution and the palace’s allies amongst the senators seem unable reach the consummation the President desires.

That the town hall tour announced by Aquino is being disguised as a run-up to the anniversary celebrations of the first Edsa “people power” revolt deceives no one. The real reason for the roadshow is to convince people to rise against Corona, so that he may resign.

Or, in the eloquent words of Aquino himself: “We are now being challenged to fight for our future. Should the ordinary [people] allow themselves to [remain] unheard in this impeachment?”

If it were just Aquino and his usual entourage of PSG tough guys, his hangers-on and supernumeraries whose upkeep all of us already pay for, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. But when Malacañang starts expanding its road tour to include crowds-for-hire and “instant” rallies—on our dime— perhaps it’s time to put our collective foot down.

Sources have intimated that a top political operator of the palace has started mobilizing heads of local government units who hold top positions in the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines to stage rallies in favor of Aquino’s anti-Corona position. The point man of the palace’s political operative is reportedly a prominent mayor of a northern province who used to be a fair-haired boy of the Arroyo administration.

The initial salvo is supposed to be a rally that will be the culmination of the people power anniversary. The pro-administration shindig is supposed to have as participants the crowds that will be gathered by local officials from amongst their own constituents; and, as any mayor and governor knows, such crowds cost money.

The funding for the rally—and subsequent crowd-gathering exercises —was supposed to be the topic of the conversation between the ULAP official and a man known in the palace as “Mr. Money.” This latter official is supposed to find the money for the Malacañang-funded rallies.

Of course, that’s really our money, as taxpayers. So, my own unsolicited advice to the plotters of the palace-organized rallies is to tell people to attend since we’re already paying for them.

To be fair, the decision of the palace to stage anti-Corona rallies is clearly an offshoot of a mass action staged by partisans of the chief justice in front of the Supreme Court last Thursday. That sudden gathering of thousands of people in support of Corona on that day must have spooked the palace operatives enough to make it start planning “hakot” rallies.

But that rally, which filled Padre Faura street from Taft Avenue to the Robinson’s Manila mall with people, is (unfortunately for Malacañang) apparently not the last salvo of the pro-Corona crowd. There is allegedly an even bigger gathering that is being planned in Manila’s Rizal Park by the end of this month.

The question that must be asked, naturally, is how the rallies will affect the Senate sitting in judgment of Corona. Will the fate of Corona now be decided by who can gather the bigger crowds?

Perhaps some people would like it that way. But while it is the people’s right to peaceably assemble and express their beliefs, a line should be drawn when scarce state funds representing taxes and other assets owned ultimately by the people are employed to simulate a “people power” event on the behest of Aquino.

No one asked me, but that sounds like an impeachable offense.

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